• The Washington Post, Monday, November 26, 2007 12:45 PM

As more Americans go green, debates are fermenting over packaging: plastic vs. paper at the grocery store, plastic vs. glass for beverages. The packaging issue perplexes Seth Goldman, co-founder and CEO of Honest Tea, an organic-beverage company where sustainability is a way of life. He is agnostic on the issue.

"If you can reduce your package, that's what you should do first," Goldman says. That's where the plastic bottles come in. Made of PET plastic, which can be recycled only once--or made into carpet or clothing--the bottle's liquid weight is 512 grams, while its package weight is 42.2 grams. That means 92.4% of the weight comes from the product. The total weight of Honest Tea's plastic bottle is seven times lighter than its glass bottle, meaning the company can fit more of the plastic product onto shipping trucks.

About 2,100 cases of glass product can travel on a truck. That number jumps to nearly 2,700 for plastic, making it more efficient to distribute. The only problem is that the fuel saved by shipping more product on one vehicle is somewhat offset by the petroleum used to make the plastic. That's where recyclable glass comes in.

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